New on DVD: 'This Is It,' 'Whip It' and more …

25 Jan, 2010 By: Mike Clark

Before writing a quarter-century’s worth of consecutive Friday home viewing columns for USA Today, I programmed about 5,000 movies at Washington, D.C’s American Film Institute Theater for eight years.

Before that, I went through a kind of screening-regimen boot camp (though this one was more for wimps) at New York University’s Graduate School of Cinema. And before that, I worked at a CBS affiliate in one of the country’s largest feature film libraries.

In other words, I have seen them come and go.

Starting this week, I hope to bring some of the colorful fallout from all this (plus my admitted junkie-dom for sports, politics and all things pop) to a Home Media Magazine feature devoted to the viewing room releases that push my buttons.

I didn’t want to begin until there was an especially meaty week of choices at hand. So here we are: for anyone whose taste runs to the eclectic, Jan. 26’s street date comes close to being the full haunch.

Michael Jackson’s This Is It

Street 1/26
Sony Pictures, Music, B.O. $72.1 million, $28.96 DVD; $39.95 Blu-ray, ‘PG’ for some suggestive choreography and scary images.
2009. Jackson is in full command as he rehearses for the concert that never was. Some of the performance footage here needs no qualification: “The Way You Make Me Feel” performance, for example, made me feel pretty spry.
Extras: Several behind-the-scenes documentaries, and the Blu-ray adds lots more, including interactive features.
Read the Full Review

Whip It

Street 1/26
Fox, Comedy, B.O. $13 million, $29.98 DVD, $39.99 Blu-ray, ‘PG-13’ for sexual content including crude dialogue, language and drug material.
Stars Ellen Page, Juliette Lewis, Drew Barrymore, Marcia Gay Harden, Daniel Stern.
2009. Drew Barrymore’s directorial debut benefits from plucky Ellen Page really diving into roller derby mayhem. The story’s sisterly camaraderie (Lewis and Barrymore play partners in contusions) is not without appeal, and it’s fun to see the beer enthusiast dad played by Daniel Stern.
Extras: Expendable deleted scenes — though there’s one funny harangue by the team’s coach (Andrew Wilson).
Read the Full Review

Roberto Rossellini’s War Trilogy

Street 1/26
Criterion, Drama, $79.95 three-DVD set, NR.
1945-48. Director Rossellini made history by filming World War II’s aftermath as it happened with Rome Open City (1945); Paisan (1946-48) and Germany Year Zero (1948-49). The still-searing City, about Italy’s anti-Fascist resistance, put future Oscar-winning actress Anna Magnani on the international map. The six-part Paisan remains an uncommonly consistent anthology film.
Extras: Archival Rossellini intros, extensive documentaries, essays, the Taviani Brothers (great Italian filmmakers themselves) paying homage, and more.
Read the Full Review

The Kennedy Assassination: 24 Hours Later

Street 1/26
A&E, Documentary, $19.95 DVD, NR.
2009. As one historian notes, few days left America more vulnerable than the events of Nov. 22, 1963. This account replicates the feel of William Manchester’s 1967 essential read The Death of a President — possibly because the author himself compiled documents in 1964-65 that were sealed until last year. Most amazing revelation: a power scuffle over JFK’s body between government and local authorities in the hospital, during which someone actually pulled a gun.
Read the Full Review

Bright Star

Street 1/26
Sony Pictures, Drama, B.O. $4.4 million, $27.96 DVD, ‘PG’ for thematic elements, some sensuality, brief language and incidental smoking.
Stars Ben Whishaw, Abbie Cornish, Paul Schneider.
2009. The story is of John Keats at 23 as an aspiring Romantic poet. Writer-director Jane Campion got super reviews for her take on the romance between Keats (Whishaw) and neighbor Fannie Brawne (Cornish). The movie looks gorgeous, too — so where’s the Blu-ray?
Extras: Three minor Campion featurettes, over in a blink.
Read the Full Review

Country’s Greatest Stars Live: Vol. 1 and 2 (DVD Review)

Street 1/26
Shout! Factory, Music, $26.99 each two-DVD set, NR.
1978. Telecast over a five-month period during the Jimmy Carter years, this seven-hour tribute to 50 years of a bedrock music form showcases more than 60 artists performing the expected evergreens. But this is what you want in a comprehensive overview, which is far more often moving than not despite an overabundance of saccharine strings.
Read the Full Review